Impact of Power - Tommy: Red Turbo
by JTrevizo
Summary: With the team's graduation from High School and the passing of their ranger powers, Tommy ponders the past, present and future. Spoiler: PR through PRT "Passing the Torch pt2". Part of the Impact of Power series.


1/3/2013

From: JTrevizo

Rating: K (maybe K+)…

Spoiler: PR through PRT "Passing the Torch pt2"

Disclaimer: Power Rangers belonged to Saban, then to Disney, and now are owned by Saban again. I'm so confused…

Summary: With the team's graduation from High School and the passing of their ranger powers, Tommy ponders the past, present and future.

Hi all. This is another in the series of vignettes focused on former power rangers and how they find what they accomplished under the helmet had bigger impacts than just saving the world. Other stories are being posted under the Impact of Power title by other authors such as Pink_Green_White_4ever, ScarletDeva and Shawn30. A community is also now set up where all the series will be archived, as well as my home website. I hope you enjoy, and now, to the story…

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Impact of Power: Tommy [Red Turbo Ranger]  
By JTrevizo 

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Standing alone on the sidewalk, the others having already gone into the Community Center which was holding a graduation party for Angel Grove's new grads, only one thought continued to circle throughout Tommy's head: he wasn't a ranger anymore.

Realistically Tommy understood what had driven Zordon to decide to retire the current, well now, past Turbo team and pass the Turbo powers on. With high school over and so many new opportunities before him, he would have been hard pressed to make the choice between following his heart of doing his duty.

So their mentor had made that hard choice for them all.

Yet there was a small part of him that hated the fact that the decision had been taken from him. He'd had that be the case once too many times in his life. So many of the situations regarding his being a ranger had been forced on him, or otherwise out of his hands. Becoming a ranger in the first place hadn't been his choice. And then there were the times he'd lost his powers...

There was a sudden burst of sound as someone within the Community Center cranked up the music inside. Tommy looked up and was mesmerized at the sight of all the happy people within, even as his own emotions were in turmoil. This wasn't the first time he'd lost his powers. To be honest he'd sort of lost the Green Ranger mantle twice, but the second time he'd kinda known it was coming; the first had been the more devastating as it hadn't been followed within a month of the White Ranger's power coming to him.

This time it was different. He hadn't had his powers ripped from him by an evil force. He'd ended up voluntarily passing them on to T.J. He had to wonder if this was how Jason had felt the first time, when he left for Geneva and had handed his mantle to Rocky?

But at the same time he wondered about what he'd just done to T.J. Had his decision to go along with Zordon's plan to let him off the hook of his responsibility doomed T.J. to years of service? Was there going to be someone there to relieve him when the time came?

It hadn't hit him until now that his freedom had come at the price of T.J.'s service. There was no real victory here - all he'd done was pass the torch; he'd set down his burden on T.J.'s shoulders.

But what was done was done. He couldn't change it, he couldn't take it back. He wasn't a ranger anymore. He was just an average guy with an average life to live.

The idea that he was free from the yoke of not just leadership but any kind of service to saving Earth was... strange. After so long he wasn't sure he remembered what it was like to not be responsible for the lives of nearly six billion people every day.

Now he just had to figure out what to do with that freedom.

Yet as he started back into the party and saw the people there; friends, family, residents of Angel Grove and cities all over, he was reminded that he'd spent his years saving these people. That each time he had gone out in a different uniform he had been doing so to protect these people. And because he had done that they were all there to celebrate this day with him. Celebrate the wide open world that he now had in front of him - a world he'd saved for just this opportunity.

-End-

Thanks for reading! Please note there will be a post of Legacy of Valor with a special Author's Note.

Ms. J.


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